Soviet Theatre Research Articles

Eisenstein's Wiseman

Throughout the first decade of its existence, Soviet theatre sought inspiration and new directions in the popular arts. In the period after the Revolution, the most innovative Russian directors and writers, by turning to the clowning and novelty acts of circus and music hall attempted a complete break with the traditions of bourgeois drama—its plotting, psychology, and domestic themes—in order to create a vital new political and propagandistic theatre with, they hoped, broad appeal to the masses.The painter Yuri Annenkov, in his version of Tolstoy's The First Distiller at the Hermitage Theatre, Petrograd, in 1919, added clowns and variety acts, made hell into a circus, and turned the devils into acrobats. Vladimir Mayakovsky collaborated with the professional clown Vitaly Lazarenko in staging his circus scenario The Championship of the Universal Class Struggle (See T-57) at the Second State Circus in Moscow.

Spectator and Spectacle: The Theatre of Okhlopkov

Few artists have managed to play a leading role in the avant-garde for half a century without taking their share of barbs and innuendos. This holds particularly true for a director working within the sensitive, politicized milieu of Soviet theatre, and Nikolai Okhlopkov is no exception. His colleagues tended to regard him as a dangerous anomaly, someone who, like Kafka's Odradek, does no apparent harm to anyone, but whose mere survival is almost painful.Western theatregoers are highly suspicious of anyone working in a political theatre that upholds the Establishment. Soviet reviewers, both those who support Okhlopkov and those who deplore his “social irresponsibility,” are obliged to discuss one major question: does his theatre reflect the essence of life in an evolving socialist society? Further complications arise from the fact that any director subsidized by the state is continually called upon to affirm the expectations of both spectator and sponsor.

Chekhov's “Three Sisters” at the Gorky Theatre

A classic tends to age, disappear from active repertory, and then revive to meet the spiritual needs of a new audience, no less—and sometimes more—than do contemporary plays.In recent years, Soviet theatre has increasingly produced the classics. Plays which not long ago saw little more than a dustrag have become the subject of violent debate, making new names for actors and directors.Venerable academicians, learned literary scholars and theatre historians who have devoted their lives to the study of Russian classics react with divided feelings. They are pleased that their beloved plays once more meet the needs of the day, but are infuriated by what they see as the disrespect of the directors. Some of the older theatre-goers are also unsatisfied with contemporary interpretations of the classics.

Soviet Theatre: 2 Views

Although the Soviet theatre is gigantic in extent and past achievements, its exact lineaments are often hard to discern from the West. Because of a distance which is linguistic, cultural, and political as well as geographical, balanced news does not filter through to us with any regularity; for many the Russian theatre is still summed up by one man—Stanislavski. Others are impressed by the Soviet system of permanent theatre companies but are unaware of their disadvantages and the pressures to which they are subject. Except on a few festival occasions, such as Edinburgh, London's “World Theatre Season,” or Aix-en-Provence, the theatre is not a very exportable commodity, and on the rare tours by Soviet theatre companies outside Eastern Europe, critical reaction has usually differed sharply.

Lunacharsky and the Rescue of Soviet Theatre

Lunacharsky and the Rescue of Soviet Theatre

A note on recent developments in the Soviet theatre

A note on recent developments in the Soviet theatre

Shakespeare and the Soviet Theater: The Optimism of Tragedy

U The Soviet theater has destroyed established views. It has created new interpretations and daring stage presentations. It has been closely aligned with and highly dependent upon theoretical conclusions of Soviet Shakespearean studies. From the beginning, this theater has been embarked upon a path of innovation and independent scrutiny. It has rejected all forms of anti-realistic art. While defending its own new esthetic ideal, it has begun boldly to dispute the major authorities and talents of the past. Firmly established canons have been destroyed, whenever they have presented obstacles to creative work. The decisive and determining factor in these innovations has been the Marxist-Leninist world view, a perspective that has now made possible a true understanding of history for theater personnel. This view has illuminated the entire scope of Shakespeare's era, defining trends and clarifying historical development. For us, Shakespeare emerges as a great writer of the people, as a poet-philosopher, as a man imbued with the leading ideas of his time. The Soviet theater has restored Shakespeare's humanism to its original significance, one it had during the great revolutionary era of the liberation of the human personality....

Prokofieff's Eighth Piano Sonata

Prokofieff finished the Eighth Sonata in 1944. It is unusual among his mature ‘abstract’ works in its stylistic kinship with his theatre music of the period. In earlier years, before his return to Soviet Russia, Prokofieff had composed two symphonies (Nos. 3 and 4) which derived much of their musical substance from stage works written shortly before them, but later the styles of his ‘absolute’ and ‘theatre’ music diverged considerably. Guided by the notion that the theatre in all its guises reached the mass public more directly than any other means of artistic communication, he addressed his Soviet theatre audience in a tremendously effective idiom exemplified in such works as Alexander Nevsky, Peter and the Wolf, and Romeo and Juliet. In his ‘abstract’ works of the same period he did not feel the need to carry the pursuit of ‘accessibility’ of idiom so far, and the exceptional character of the Eighth Piano Sonata among his work in this form is in some part attributable to the untypical presence of these ‘theatrical’ elements in it.

The Soviet Theater Today

The Soviet Theater Today

Comedy in the Soviet Theatre

Comedy in the Soviet Theatre

The soviet theatre, 1957

The soviet theatre, 1957

Comedy in the Soviet Theater

Comedy in the Soviet Theater

Book reviews

The Soviet theatre Sovetsky Teatr. Vserossiiskoye Teatralnoye Obshchestvo. Moscow 1947, 639 pp. Investment regulations Organizatsia Finansirovania i Kreditovania Kapitalnykh Vlozhenii (The Organization of the Financing and Crediting of Capital Investments). By various authors, under the direction of N. N. Rovinsky. Gosfinizdat, 1951, 370 pp. A Russian cookery book Kniga o Vkusnoi i Zdorovoi Pishche (A Book on Tasty and Healthy Food), published by the USSR Ministry of Food Industry, approved by the Nutritional Committee of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Pishchepromizdat 1951, 252 pp., 10r. Istoria Gosudarstva i Prava (History of the State and Law), Volume II (edited by Z. M. Chernilovsky), Moscow, 1951.

Latest Trends in the Soviet Theatre

Latest Trends in the Soviet Theatre

The New Soviet Theatre

The New Soviet Theatre

The soviet theatre—acting and staging

The soviet theatre—acting and staging

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:Experiment in Autobiography. By H. G. Wells.The Social Survey of Merseyside.The New Philanthropy. By Elizabeth Macadam, M. A. Publisbed By George Allen and Unwin.The First Workers Government. By G. R. MitchisonBritain's POlitical Future. By Lord Allen of HurtwoodThe Liberal Way: A Survey of Liberal Policy. Publided by the Authorio of the National Liberal Federation. Edited by Ramsay MuirProblems of the Socialist Transition. By Stafford Cripps and OthersWhy This Socialism? By Stafford CrippsParliamentary Reform. By W. I. Jennings, M.A., LL.D.Survey of International Relations, 1933 3. By Arnold Toynbee, assisted by V. M. BoulterA Short History of International Affairs, 1920–1934. By G. M. Gathorne‐HardyPeace With Honour. By A. A. MilneLabour and War. By Bjarne Braatoy. Wifb a Preface by Harold J. LaskiA Better League of Nations. By F. N. KeenNationality and the Peace Treaties. By W. Sullivan MolonyInternational Narcotics Control. By L. E. S. EisenlohrThe Saar and The Franco‐German Problem. By B. T. ReynoldsThe Life of Joseph Chamberlain. Vol. 111. 1895–1900. By J. L. Garvin.The Life of Lord Carson. Vol. 11. By IAN Colvin.The Rise of Gladstone to the Leadership of the Liberal Party, 1859–1868. By W. E. Williams.Mr. Gladstone at the Board of Trade. By Francis E. Hyde. With a foreword Ly F. W. Hirst.George Tierney. By H. K. Olphin.Fox. By Christopher Hobhouse.Rights and Duties of Englishwomen. By Erna Reiss. With a PreJae by Eleanor Rathbone, M.P.Women Under Fascism and Communism. By Hilda Browning.Post‐War France. By Paul Vaucher D‐es L. Home University Library.Supply and Trade in The U.S.S.R. By W. Nodel.Foreign Trade in the U.S.S.R. By J. D. Yanson.Health Protection in the U.S.S.R. By N. A. Semashko.The Soviet Theatre. By P. A. Markov.Co‐Operation in the U.S.S.R. By Leslie A. Paul.War and Peace in the Soviet Union. By Gore Graham.The October Revolution. By Joseph Stalin.The Soviet State. By Bertram W. Maxwell, Ph.D.Russian Sociology. By Julius Hecker, Ph.D.C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian. By J. L. Hammond.